


Look Inside You And Be Strong

by crocs



Series: A Fleeting Wisp Of Glory [1]
Category: Cloak & Dagger (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Crack Treated Seriously, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 16:41:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15417189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crocs/pseuds/crocs
Summary: "…Congratulations, Tyrone," Tandy said, "You're the first incarnation of  King Arthur in a hundred years to not be an attention whore."Or, the fic where Tyrone is the reincarnation of King Arthur, Tandy is the newest Lady of the Lake, and everything else is the same.





	Look Inside You And Be Strong

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own anything.

**SEVEN YEARS AGO** **  
**  
Tyrone grasped the outstretched glowing hand and allowed himself to be pulled up. Or down. He wasn't sure.  
  
As he broke the surface he felt like he was being sucked through a black hole — no oxygen, his body compressing and squeezing until he was nothing.  
  
Then Tyrone saw nothing at all.

* * *

  
  
**NOW**  
  
The lake began to bubble. Tyrone stood transfixed.  
  
A glowing, ethereal hand reached out from the middle of the water. Its fingers were curled around the hilt of an ornate sword, one adorned with ghostly jewels and that shone like the hand itself. The hand was followed by an arm, and then, a shoulder. Soon, a whole body emerged.  
  
It was a teenager. A girl.  
  
She looked pissed off.  
  
The girl wore a simple white gown, sopping wet as she stood in the water. The end of the dress floated limply on the surface of the water. It wasn't muddy, Tyrone noticed; the only thing wrong with it was that it was drenched.  
  
She stared at Tyrone with hard eyes. Water dripped down her pale face as she tilted her head. Her shoulder-length blonde hair was slicked back. She laid the sharp end of the sword across the palm of her other hand, thinking.  
  
"I thought you'd be taller," she remarked, finally. Her voice was rough from disuse.  
  
Tyrone ran.

* * *

  
  
_It had to have been a dream_ , Tyrone assured himself, looking in his bedroom mirror. He straightened his tie for the nth time. Sighing and pulling on his school sweater, he took one last look at the photo of Billy that he'd taped to one of the corners of his mirror and walked downstairs.  
  
On his way down, he thought about the night before.  
  
Evita had invited him to a party — a big one — and whilst he'd been there, he'd lost his wallet. Or it'd been stolen. He'd cursed and immediately began to look for it; he knew his parents would kill him if they found out he didn't have it.  
  
Because it had been Billy's.  
  
The party was near the woods, and Tyrone had followed a gut feeling to the trees. His feet had found themselves walking of their own accord — Tyrone had trusted his own sense of direction to find it.  
  
His search had lead to him to a small clearing. The leather wallet had been on the ground and Tyrone had stuffed it in his pocket. Then, he'd noticed a lake, and after that —  
  
Tyrone stuffed a piece of toast in his mouth as he got to the kitchen table. It was a dream. It had to have been.  
  
Already at the table, his dad laughed as he did so. "Tyrone! You're going to choke! Slow down," he chided. He then turned back to his newspaper.  
  
"It's suicide runs today," he covered, through a mouthful of bread. His mom shot him a disapproving look. He swallowed. "Sorry, Ma."  
  
She shook her head as she powered on her laptop. "My Johnson boys, always _rushing_."  
  
"That's why you love us," his dad joked.  
  
His mom glared at him, but there was no real heat to it. She was even smiling. "God help me."  
  
Finishing off his toast, Tyrone scraped off his plate and stuck it in the dishwasher. He yelled a goodbye as he ran to get his messenger bag and letterman jacket from upstairs.  
  
As he made his way out of the door, he made the mistake of slipping his hand into his pockets.  
  
And Tyrone froze.  
  
Because, of course, he'd worn the jacket the night before at the party. And before the party he'd put his wallet into his back pocket for easy access. In his dream, though, when he had found the wallet, he'd stick it in one of his front jacket pockets.  
  
Tyrone's heart tightened as he felt the worn leather brush against his hand.

* * *

  
  
The clearing took him a while to find after school.  
  
He desperately tried to retrace his steps from the following night to no avail. Every step he took seemed to send him in a circle. Just when the daylight began to fade, Tyrone decided to give up.  
  
That was, of course, the moment he saw it.  
  
He weighed his options in his head. Either he could check it out, putting to rest once and for all the dream, or he could go home. Maybe catch that game.  
  
_Screw that,_ Tyrone decided, and trudged towards the lake.  
  
"Uh, hello? Crazy white girl?" He called out to the lake from the soil bank.  
  
No response came from the water.  
  
"I'm insane," he muttered to himself, turning around again, "I'm actually completely —"  
  
"Do you always talk to yourself like this? 'Cause if so, that's pretty demoralising."  
  
Tyrone spun on his heels.  
  
The girl stood knee-deep in the water, arms crossed. In the daylight, she looked less like Samara from The Ring and more like some sort of warrior ghost; or at least, she would've if she'd have still had the sword in her hands.  
  
He spluttered in response. "You — you —"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Who are you?"  
  
She rolled her hazel eyes. "Well, you want the long answer or the short answer?"  
  
"Either."  
  
"Call me Tandy."  
  
"That's the long version?"  
  
"No," Tandy said, "but nobody calls me the Lady of the Lake anymore."  
  
"No one's got the time," Tyrone replied faintly. Then his face creased in shock. "You're _the_ Lady of the Lake? The one that gave _King Arthur_ his _sword?"_ _  
_  
"Excalibur," she corrected him. Tandy shifted her stance in the lake, the water rippling out from underneath her. "And no."  
  
The confusion must have shown on Tyrone's face as she uncrossed her arms and screwed up her own.

"I mean, yes and no — I'm not Nymue or Viviane, but I'm still the Lady of the Lake. I still know what they know, and what they did — I have those memories. It's just that I didn't make them. Reincarnation, y'know?"  
  
Tyrone nodded numbly, even though he had no idea about what she was talking about.  
  
Tandy waded around in the water, her dress trailing after her as she spoke. "Ever since I woke up seven years ago, I've been stuck in this lake. Not always visible, but still here. I'm kinda trapped. Guarding Excalibur."  
  
He shook his head and rubbed the back of his shoulder with his hand.  
  
"This is crazy," Tyrone mumbled, mainly to himself.  
  
She stopped and turned a sharp look on him. "Crazier than Asgardians dropping from the sky and Tony Stark being Iron Man?"  
  
"You know about that?"  
  
Tandy huffed a laugh. "I wasn't born yesterday, Artie."  
  
"Artie? No, no — my name's Tyrone. Tyrone Johnson. If you have to give me a nickname — It's Ty."  
  
She made a tutting noise. "See, this is where it gets weird. You might want to take a seat."  
  
Tyrone all but collapsed onto the small front.  
  
"Y'know when I said reincarnation totally sucks?"  
  
He nodded, dreading the rest of her sentence.  
  
"The thing is…" Tandy trailed off. "The thing is that _you should already know that, Arthur_."  
  
A beat, and then —  
  
"You _can't_ be serious," Tyrone responded incredulously.  
  
"I know."  
  
"This is nuts. This is actually —" — he cursed as he scrambled to stand up — "I know I’ve said it before, but this is —"  
  
"Nuts?"  
  
Tyrone rubbed a hand over his face. "I'm sure you're a nice, well, whatever you are —"  
  
"Oh, that's kind."  
  
"— but I've heard enough. I'm just Tyrone Johnson. I'm not _King Arthur_ ," he rebutted.  
  
He could hear Tandy sigh as he began to walk away.  
  
"Listen, asshole!" she shouted at his retreating figure. "If you don't suspend your disbelief for one second, ROXXON are probably going to _destroy_ New Orleans!"  
  
He stopped. "What did you just say about ROXXON?"  
  
"They're drilling," she continued, "for something that burns much, much hotter than oil. It's called the Darkforce. It's — it's dangerous. They don't know what they're doing. It'll be even more catastrophic than the oil rig collapse all those years ago."  
  
"I can't have anyone else die, Ty," Tandy pleaded at his turned back, vulnerable for the first time. "Not after my dad. Take the damn sword. Stop this."  
  
"Okay."  
  
"Okay?"  
  
Tyrone closed his eyes and reopened them. "Okay."  
  
He turned back around.  
  
The sheathed weapon had materialised whilst his back had been turned. It was laid, outstretched, over Tandy's palms like the night before, and the topaz that subtly decorated the hilt shone brightly in the sunshine.  
  
Tyrone took the wet sword from her hands and unsheathed it. He hoisted the sword high in the air and marvelled at the way it glinted in the sunlight.  
  
Then the strangest thing happened.  
  
The sword glowed bright and hot like an exploding star, as if responding to his touch. Tyrone dropped it in shock and watched as it clattered onto the ground.  
  
Tandy smiled as they watched it change shape.  
  
"You know why Excalibur was forged, Tyrone?" She asked. Tyrone shook his head, still in shock. "To _protect_ Britain. Some other reincarnations of Arthur took this to mean, y'know, heading out to battle with it with a thousand armies by their side, blah blah blah…"  
  
The sword's glow dulled. In its place was a just-as-intricate black cloak. Tyrone's hands shook as he picked it up. As if in a trance, he pulled it on and tugged the hood over his head. He looked utterly unrecognisable in the water's reflection.  
  
"…Congratulations, Tyrone," Tandy said, "You're the first incarnation of  King Arthur in a hundred years to not be an attention whore."  
  
She made to pat him on the back, but quickly stopped as she took a cautious step out of the water, and then another.  
  
"What are you doing? Tandy, I thought you were —"  
  
"— the Lady of the Lake?" Tandy hummed. "I've done my job. I've given you Excalibur. Now," she hitched up her dress as she climbed up onto the bank, "I'm avenging my dad."  
  
Then she tripped over a wayward branch.  
  
"You can't just — Woah!" He tried to catch Tandy as she fell, but almost as if she was incorporeal, she fell through his arms.  
  
"Ugh," she summarised as she got up off her elbows. Tandy looked up at him as she brushed off the soil on her dress. "Oh, um — I'm technically dead. So we're kind of on different planes of existence." Tandy grimaced. "When the oil rig collapsed, my dad went off road. We fell in the water. I drowned. And then — and then I woke up as a sorceress in a lake. I've been like this ever since."  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
"It's not really a problem. I don't have any friends to touch."  
  
"Sorry," Tyrone repeated, though his brain was whirring. If Tandy had died and came back, what if his brother —  
  
No. He rationalised. His brother was truly dead. Though it had taken years of therapy to get through, Tyrone finally could admit that he was.  
  
Maybe it was time for Tyrone to avenge Billy, too.  
  
"I can hear you thinking."  
  
"You can?"  
  
"No, idiot. What's wrong?"  
  
"My brother died on that night too. There was a chase, and a cop shot him. He didn't do anything, and yet…"  
  
"Now _I'm_ sorry."  
  
"I want nothing else but to find that cop. But destiny, huh?" Tyrone shrugged, feeling the weight of the cloak on his shoulders.  
  
Tandy scrunched her eyebrows in thought. "I have an idea."  
  
"Okay."  
  
"You go check out ROXXON. Hopefully you'll stop them before it's too late. Protect New Orleans like it's sixth century Britain." She paused. "And I can check out the cop for you."  
  
"You'd seriously do that?"  
  
"Well, I've just fulfilled _my_ destiny," she gestured to the cloak, "and I have nothing else to do. Plus, it's probably easier to tail a cop when you can turn invisible. Sorceress, remember?"  
  
Tyrone looked at Tandy, hoping she saw the thanks in his eyes he couldn't express with his voice.  
  
"Uh, that sounds good," he managed, finally.  
  
"Cool."  
  
"Cool."  
  
Tandy rocked on her bare feet, her still wet dress dripping on the ground. Then, she stilled, and splayed a hand out, placing it carefully on her dress.  
  
A second passed, then a golden wave of light spread out from her hand and washed over her completely. Tyrone felt the wind pick up around him, felt the hairs stand up on his neck as he watched the gown be replaced by a different outfit in a matter of seconds.  
  
Instead of the dress, Tyrone found himself staring at a Tandy dressed in casual wear. Her hair wasn't as slicked back as it was curled and stuffed under a beanie; she also wore a blue denim jacket over a black t-shirt. It was a change, to say the least.  
  
"Oh, this?" Tandy gestured to her body. "Enchantment. Glamour, actually." She tucked a wayward strand into her cap. "There's no point in transmutation if no-one can touch you to tell you, 'hey — you're dripping wet'."  
  
She reached out, produced a glowing dagger from out of nowhere and inspected it carefully. Unlike what Excalibur previously was, it didn't have any decoration to it; it seemed to be constructed only of light. Apparently satisfied, she closed her fist and the dagger disappeared.  
  
"There's some perks to being a sorceress, then," he remarked.  
  
"Well, now I get to explore them instead of being trapped in a lake. Hey, do me a favor?"  
  
Tyrone smiled and quipped, "As long as it's not me slaying a dragon."  
  
"Hah-hah, all the dragons are in K'un-Lun anyway," Tandy replied. They began to walk out of the clearing together.  
  
"The hell’s a _K'un-Lun_?"  
  
"Trust me, even with Nymue's memories rattling around my head, even I can’t really remember. All I can remember is some asshole running around with a glowing fist, with dragons, and despite those stellar memories the place is still hazy." She shook her head as she hoisted herself over a fallen tree, Tyrone walking around it. "Either old Nym had a memory enchantment put on her or she got blackout drunk."  
  
Tyrone laughed.  
  
"Anyway," Tandy said, "no, it's not that. Just — check in on my Mom for me, okay? I don't know if I can face her after all these years. She doesn't even know I'm alive, or a ghost, or a sorceress, or whatever."  
  
He nodded, his cloak bobbing with the action. "Of course."  
  
"Thanks, Ty."  
  
Tyrone stopped as they reached the end of the tree's shade.  
  
"After you, my King," Tandy mock-bowed.  
  
"Yeah, yeah," Tyrone sighed.

The once and future king and the sorceress walked out of the woods side by side.  
  
And so, the legend began once more.

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Mariah Carey's _Hero_.


End file.
